FUNNY thing, isn’t it? Funny as in odd, that is.

Exactly a year ago, virtually everyone in Yorkshire was exulting over the “triumph” of the Tour de France. Its successful sunblest two days in the Broad Acres had showcased to the world the breathtaking scenery of – to use the overblown phrase that seemingly was on every Yorkist’s lips – “God’s Own County”.

But what a difference twelve months make. Today it’s hard to find anyone within Yorkshire who doesn’t think it right and proper – indeed desirable – that a substantial chunk of the peerless county should be sacrificed for potentially the world’s largest potash mine. And this in one of the county’s two national parks, landscapes awarded the highest priority for protection, the possession of which is usually among Yorkshire folk’s proudest boasts.

It’s especially hard to understand the enthusiasm for the York Potash mine in the communities closest at hand – Sneaton and Hawsker. Probably locals really believe they can have their cake and eat it – still live in an agreeable environment, in company with the mammoth mine.

The scale of the proposed environmental remedial measures, not least the planting 7,000 acres with trees, should hint that the reality might be different. The mine is bound to affect the ambience of the now tranquil area. Will property values rise or fall? You decide.

Then there are the jobs. Not all the unemployed in the Whitby district will be attracted to work at the mine – or suitable for it. Many workers will come from elsewhere – some from abroad. Still, new jobs are not to be sniffed it – as long as it’s understood that the impact on local unemployment might not match expectation.

The chief issue, however, is the loss of countryside. In our small, ever-more-crowded island, no-one is making it anymore.

It was D.H. Lawrence who once declared: “The human soul needs beauty as well as bread,” Arty twaddle? You might think so, but whenever Britons are asked what they value most in their nation, the countryside always emerges not far behind the most valued asset, the NHS.

It was images of the countryside, not mines, factories or even the semi-detached homes in which most people live, that were used to uphold morale during the Second World War. “It’s Your Britain – Fight For It” read the slogan on a poster showing a family holding hands on swelling downland.

Still, I agree with the correspondent to this newspaper who said that nothing he had read nothing in the statements against the potash mine would persuade him to oppose it. That’s because they were seriously short on passion. (A phrase of W. B. Yeats, “the best lack all conviction” comes to mind.)

As ever, John Betjeman can provide what’s required. In1963, lamenting the urbanisation of Middlesex and fearing it was the pattern of things to come, he observed: “Probably there is no turning back and it is for that reason that every acre where there is still quiet and the smell of grass and the sound of brooks becomes more precious and essential for our recreation.”

Exactly right, and it is our duty to pass on to future generations landscapes that can refresh and inspire. But we will be despoiling one of the best, The North York Moors, with this colossal new mine.